


Prerogative

by anomieow



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Edwardian, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Class Differences, Coming In Pants, Coming Untouched, Dom/sub, Finger Sucking, M/M, Oral Sex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shame Edward Little Power Hour, Solo anal play, Spanking, Topson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:15:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28334490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomieow/pseuds/anomieow
Summary: “Ah, Sir!” Jopson smiled. “You’re awake.”Edward attempted a smile. How fine Jopson looked, standing over him, his eyes that unnameable marine pale. Rosemary, sea salt, stiff wind. He patiently awaited his reprimand. For Jopson was a capable man, a man stern and neat without any of the sententiousness or sourness that often accompanies such an air of command in a manservant. He was not inclined to speak out of line but nor did he shrink from succinct correction where it was due. And Edward (secretly, miserably) thrilled at such corrections; between Jopson’s mild tone and the tranquil warmth of his gaze it felt intolerably intimate. He did not know whether Jopson liked him or disliked him, and he preferred it that way.
Relationships: Lt Edward Little/Sgt Solomon Tozer, Thomas Jopson/Lt Edward Little
Comments: 24
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

“We’ll be found out,” Edward whispers. 

“We’ll not be found out. Not unless you make a desperate, dirty mess of it. Or of yourself, as you sometimes do.” Thomas Jopson takes Edward’s chin in his hand and tilts his face up, studying it: the dark eyes, all fretful but dilated with want, the neat geometry of his mouth. The brows knit in vexation. Jopson’s voice is genial, low. “You’ll not do that, will you?”

Edward shakes his head. “No,” he says, almost inaudibly.

“No what?”

“No, sir.” His tongue darts out to moisten his lips and he shifts his weight: his knees, one imagines, must be sore from so often bearing his weight. 

“Good lad,” Jopson murmurs with a soft smile, his pale eyes gleaming in the dim light.

It’s New Years’ Eve and they can hear the party going downstairs, throbs and trills of muffled music and distant spikes of laughter. But the upstairs library feels solemn and disused, despite the fact that since his return from overseas Edward has spent most of his time there. Even slept there, some nights, on the leather sofa. A serious little ghost among the rows of books, the dust, old curios. Tall windows facing north: steep winter light, truncated dusks. A brief flare of pink in the naked trees, then frigid black. It was on such a night that Jopson first came to him.

He moved so silently, the valet did, that were it not for the unavoidable wheeze of the door hinge, he might have taken Edward by surprise. Still, when he entered—and Edward knew it would be no one else—he continued to feign sleep, book splayed open on the arm of the sofa at his head. He listened as Jopson picked the book up and stepped around to where Edward lay, and—stood there, motionless. The more he tried to lie still, the more disordered his breath became, as though he couldn’t fetch enough air into his lungs. He sighed deeply and opened his eyes.

“Ah, Sir!” Jopson smiled. “You’re awake.”

Edward attempted a smile. How fine Jopson looked, standing over him, his eyes that unnameable marine pale. Rosemary, sea salt, stiff wind. He patiently awaited his reprimand. For Jopson was a capable man, a man stern and neat without any of the sententiousness or sourness that often accompanies such an air of command in a manservant. He was not inclined to speak out of line but nor did he shrink from succinct correction where it was due. And Edward (secretly, miserably) thrilled at such corrections; between Jopson’s mild tone and the tranquil warmth of his gaze it felt intolerably intimate. He did not know whether Jopson liked him or disliked him, and he preferred it that way. 

Edward was a lonely man. Never a particularly gregarious fellow, what warmth and generosity of spirit he did possess had vanished in the trenches. Perhaps without meaning to, he had given it away piecemeal to his comrades and kept nothing for the life after. When he did return, relatively unharmed at that, he was astonished—fatigued—baffled. That his life still lay ahead of him, that he was expected to go forth into it as though the callused gristle of war had not unfolded before him: it was unimaginable. And so he took to the library, assiduously rereading the books that he had enjoyed as a boy. He wanted no company other than that, trembling, as he was, always at the brink of some juddering paroxysm of overwhelm. He wished not to talk, not to smile, not to be. He might blink noiselessly from the world one day and it would be a fine thing. 

But he did, he found after several weeks, wish for Jopson’s company and his company only. He was reserved but genial, and always held himself, despite being a decade his junior and vastly his inferior in rank, as decidedly a superior. Dissected, in fact, did Edward feel by Jopson’s impassive, curious gaze; seen as someone neither good nor bad but as something alien. And he came to crave this. There developed between them, too, a funny kind of flirtation, various exchanges so subtle and complex others might miss them. Incidental touches invested with meaning by a sidewise glance, or a well-timed moistening of the lips around a dry entendre. Now this Jopson stood over him, book clasped at his waist.

“Sir, you cannot keep leaving the books open like this.” He thrust the book into Edward’s face, crouching to do so. He ran his finger up a barely discernible indentation in the spine. “Do you see that crease there? It is from leaving this nasty habit of yours. You know, sir, that I do not relish lecturing you—”

“No, Jopson, you are quite right to.”

“—but there is one more thing, sir. It pains me to mention it.”

“Do, please.”

“A matter of returning the books to their proper places. We cannot be putting them back willy-nilly, as we have been. Surely you’d agree.”

Jopson’s face was very close to his then; he could smell black tea and violet water and the ineradicable touch of fresh sweat that is unavoidable in the stiff livery of a valet. He nodded, resisting an unseemly urge to bury his face in the dark heat between his jaw and collar and lick him clean of whatever he found there. 

Suddenly he stood again and gave Edward the book. “Put it back,” he said in a tone softly stern. Edward again had that feeling of nakedness he’d had when pretending to be asleep, that sense of being bare-throated and breathless. 

He rose slowly and, holding the book very carefully over his lap— _it is natural, in such narrow proximity to someone so comely, for this to happen,_ he reasoned with himself, feeling no less terrified for it. _A matter of—anatomy._ He stepped to the shelf, which ran along behind the couch, and spotted the dark gap between books where his beloved copy of _Robinson Crusoe_ belonged. Then something akin to the devil came over him, and he slid the book into a loose spot on the shelf above. In the dark he heard Jopson cluck his tongue, then felt his breath on the back of his neck as he slid in behind him, pressed his own half-hard prick against Edward’s lean ass, and reached past him for the incorrectly shelved book. He took it in his hand and pressed a ghost-weight kiss to the back of Edward’s neck before he leaned back and, with a swift and economic swing, smacked his ass with the book. Just like a recalcitrant schoolboy.

Edward gasped, stiffened, nearly came. Jopson slid the book into place and left as quietly as he’d entered.

That was the beginning of a chain of meetings in that library that led to this: it is New Year’s Eve, and his mother is throwing a party attended by the best and the brightest of English society while upstairs her only son—an eminently eligible bachelor whose absence will soon be noted—sucks joyfully at his valet’s cock. His own cock strains helplessly at the placket of his dress pants, but he knows better than to pay it any mind. A sensitive and messy thing it is, easily set off, and he must do absolutely everything in his power to keep from spending all over himself like the fumbling boy he is. For if he comes, Jopson has warned him, he will not be permitted to change his underclothes. He’d ceded him the right to change his trousers, for that was a matter of propriety. But the idea of going downstairs with his trousers smeared with his own spend and his face festooned with Jopson’s—the appalled faces of the revelers, the scandalized hush settling as pale and chill as snow over the ballroom—him being seen for the filthy little thing he is, seen and known and disregarded? 

His body panics thinking of it. His chest tightens and his blood thuds dully in his ears and his hands shake as they cup Jopson’s stones, grip the base of his elegantly formed shaft. And before he can stop it—thinking of himself carried by the collar down the wide staircase by Jopson himself, who is of course entirely blameless in the matter, a gasp, the music halting with a sour note—that familiar, awful warmth is bubbling up and over from the base of his body, a thin quick burst of bliss before he’s helplessly spending, cockstand twitching against nothing as it spills.

Instantly, Jopson’s beautiful prick is withdrawn from his mouth.

“Well, Edward,” he says coolly. “Perhaps another time. Let us help you change.”

Back in his room, Edward pleads for another chance but Jopson coolly refuses. Quietly he helps Edward into clean trousers, fastidiously avoiding removing his underclothes. This he will have to carry with him as he descends into that world where Jopson may not follow as an equal.


	2. Chapter 2

Seeing without being seen, Jopson watches Edward as he’s shouldered about among the glittering guests by his mother. She’s a formidable woman, as hard and hotly bright as topaz, and is obsessed with seeing her son wed. At thirty-five, his bachelorhood has become a personal affront to her. She even enlisted Jopson’s assistance in drawing up a list of bachelorettes and widows, agonizing the entire time about what should happen if he did not wed. Jopson feigned the appropriate level of concern. To tell the truth, he was fond of the woman. She had hired him despite a paucity of references based on what she described later as an “air of indomitable capability”, and they’d become something like friends in the weeks between his hire and Edward’s return from the continent. She certainly confided in him, even to the extent of alluding to her suspicion of her son’s _particular inversion_. About this she was not particularly concerned, except that it made him somewhat intractable when it came to marriage, which, to her, was a transaction that had little to do with affection.

But things are different now. He still enjoys her confidences, but uneasily. And he arranges to be alone with Edward as often as he can despite them. Now, watching him listen to the vapid prattling of some plump, over-rouged thing, he can see the helpless boredom in his eyes, his smile as stiff as paste. He feels no jealousy toward this girl specifically, for he can tell by Mrs. Little’s expression that she is not her son’s type. (Having no type of his own, she’s taken it on herself to decide what he needs: young, well-bred, clever without ambition. This “girl” is none of those things, it is clear.) He does feel, however, a vast, vague misery at the thought of Edward ever belonging to anyone else, no matter how regretfully. He wishes he could claim him like a Viking would have claimed his bride from among the daughters of the vanquished. An ugly impulse, barbaric. But he cannot deny it: Edward should be his.

He catches Edward in a doorway, lays his hand on the crook of his elbow. “I will come to you tonight,” he murmurs into his ear. “Be ready.” He feels Edward tense beneath his fingertips, hears his breath catch in his throat. He smiles as he walks away.

———

With those few choice words in the doorway, all of Edward’s blood funnels south. In the next moment his mother reappears and seizes him by the arm and escorts him back into the glittering fray. Jopson had dressed him so that his arousal would not be apparent— _Jesus._ The devil’s in the details. Or is it God? Jopson is the closest he has to either. But if he loved women—this is a game he plays sometimes, an exercise in wishful thinking—this one would probably do just fine. She’s a tall and slender thing, composed and clever, with glacial eyes and neat dark hair. A trace of haughtiness in her manner. He smirks inwardly: a lady Jopson. _Hopeless, you are,_ he chides himself. 

As soon as he can politely excuse himself to retire, he does so. He has not stopped, for one moment, thinking of what Jopson has promised him. He strips carefully and washes himself thoroughly with a damp rag. It is an act of devotion, of duty, for him to prepare his body. _Sacred ablutions_ —the phrase flits across his mind, arising from the pages of some book or another, as he rolls the wet rag across his chest. He will make himself clean, and then he will— _Be ready_ , Jopson had ordered. What he had meant: _prepare your body for mine, open yourself for me._

Sol Tozer had always made such quick work of it. Spit, thrust, stretch, and Edward’s teeth sunk into his fist to keep from crying out in pain. Not that it was his aim to hurt him—it was just how he was. They’d quarreled in the trenches, Sol all curse and swagger and side-alley, dragged from the ironyards and sentenced by birth to return there. He saw Edward for the paper-skinned, posh thing he was, and hated him for it. Hated his cowardice. Edward did brave things but it meant nothing; he knew as Sol did that cowardice is a blood taint: an inner trembling. Capillaries trembling like the tongues of rung bells. Afterwards they were in the hospital together and snuck into each other’s narrow cots at night, cornered one another in janitors’ closets and stairwells. Sol was discharged one morning while Edward was out taking in the sun, and that had been that.

But he finds himself thinking of him now. He cares far more for Jopson, in whose air of command lies a lulling mildness, but it was nice, there in the choking antiseptic cloister of the supply closet, his foot hooked up onto a shelf and Sol’s fingers thrusting punishingly hard into him—Sol panting out from between grit teeth talk of his _tight cunt_ and _wondrous nervy little tits_ , and then the unceremonious, spit-slick sear of his cock. _What a pretty lass you are,_ Sol would murmur as he came, _what a fine fucking wee thing._ Aside from a few unsatisfactory fumblings with boyhood friends, Sol was his first; yet he did not feel he had _given_ him anything. It was a matter of diversion and desperation for them both, which is perhaps why Sol hadn’t bothered with even the barest fare-thee-well. 

(Edward pretends he didn’t need one. At least the gesture of it—one last look in the eye.)

For awhile he reads, works on correspondence, occupies himself as though the entirety of him is not fixed feverishly on one thought only. By the time he lies down on his bed, well past 1, and wiggles loose of his deep blue robe, he’s worn his brain numb with the effort of self-distraction. Now he surrenders. With one hand, delicately so as not to excite himself overmuch, he pulls his half-hard cock up to rest at an angle across its nest of dark hair. Then he tips out onto his fingertips a bit of the oil from the vial Jopson had pressed into his palm weeks before: it smells grainy, sweet, of the kitchen hearth. And very carefully, he traces the puckered ring of his hole; he presses his finger against it and, while it does not give, it feels softly pleasant and so he presses harder. With his other hand he tugs idly at his prick, not coaxing it toward any end, but then as he thinks of Sol’s face as he’d come—Jopson’s too, the one lifting his lips in something like a sneer and the other sighing, sighing, arched brow and mouth open in expression of near wonder—his cock twitches happily, and his fingertip slips gently in.

He holds for a moment just there, getting used to the feel of it. Then slowly, breathing deep and ragged, he works his way up to his knuckle and crooks his finger experimentally. Feels nice—a slender, warm pressure. And there’s something… it’s hard to explain, but reaching up into his own fundament as he toys with his cock, he feels beautiful and present, pushed flush against the skin of the moment. He is glad to be where he is, to inhabit this pleasured and pleasuring body. And he wants Jopson to see him like this, a gift. An invitation. He begins to slide his finger in and out as he strokes himself more purposefully, keeping his grip too loose to escalate toward climax but it feels good enough that he feels himself melting open, his mouth quirking into a soft smile—and then the click of the doorknob turning.

He stops and lifts his head. Jopson stands there, hands clasped at his waist. “Don’t stop,” he says softly, the barest trace of sternness in his voice. He feels his gaze wander the length of him, from his thick dark hair down to the light dusting of hair on his chest, his trim waist, his thick, ruddy prick springing up from a thatch of black curls. He’s not even ashamed of how exposed he is, his finger gliding in and out. It is for him, after all: the wanton creature he’s made of him. Pleasure, longing: and now that he’s here all he can do is look at him; all he can feel is his body rising and tipping toward him as iron toward a magnet. 

Jopson steps closer. His eyes are sharp with want, the pale irises nearly eclipsed. Edward hears him exhale raggedly as he fingers the lax shirring of his fundament.

“For me?” 

Edward nods. 

“Say it.”

“It’s for you, sir. I am—I have been… making myself ready for you. Like you asked.”

Jopson nods, a neat single inclination of his head, and undoes his flies. His prick is an elegant one, flushed pink and ramrod rigid. He toys with it with his fingertips as, with his other hand, he takes Edward’s and holds it. Just for a moment. Then he raises it to his lips and kisses his wrist before raising it over Edward’s head and nestling it down into the pillow. He does the same with his other hand. “Keep them there,” he says, “until I tell you to move them.”

Then his own fingertips are stroking Edward’s lips. It takes him a moment before he understands, but then his lips part and Jopson’s fingers are in his mouth. He does his best to suck and lick each one carefully in turn, but soon he’s got all four fingers in and all he can do is minister to the cluster of them—it’s noisy and he even gags as the fingertips graze his uvula, and his lips burn around the irregular ridge of his knuckles, but Jopson’s lids are heavy with ecstasy, his own mouth lax and his breath at deep tide, and Edward knows he’s doing well.

“Oh,” Jopson breathes as he gives one particularly vicious thrust of his fingers, “look what a good boy you are.” 

Then there’s the shock of sudden emptiness as he withdraws the wet digits, trailing them down Edward’s collar—grazing his nipples—angling lightly down to his cockstand, so hard and angrily pink it’s almost comical. He gives a startled gasp as Jopson floats his palm up over the under-ridge and for a moment is afraid he’ll spend right there, but, knowing Edward’s overeager body as he does, Jopson brings his other hand smartly down across his stones in warning. Edward whimpers and squirms as he at last slips two fingers in with a careful, gentle twist.

“I want you to be mine,” Jopson says. “I’d take you for my little bride if I could.” He angles for gold—that parcel of blazing nerves deep inside—and strikes where he aims. Edward’s hips jut up off the bed and Jopson laughs, a low silvery sound. Edward looks at him, intent. He’d like to tattoo that face in his memory: Jopson looming over him in the dark, eyes stern and kind. His laugh like a rare bird. He closes his eyes and rolls with the thrust and curl of Jopson’s fingers until he’s ready, until his body seems to pour toward the other man, grasping.

“Please, sir,” he gasps.

“You want me inside of you then?” 

“God, yes, please.” A pause, his tongue flicking out to wet his lips. “Make me yours.”

Jopson sucks in a ragged breath as he laves himself in oil. And then slowly, one hand bracing his hip, he presses into him. His face all effort and bliss, that single lick of hair slipping out of place that is always slipping out of place. He is by far the most beautiful thing Edward has ever seen. He wishes to tell him this but there are other things he wants to say too: about Sol, about the darkness between volleys, about the choking gas and the masks they wore that made them look like mantises or absurd machines. Gunfire opening like so many quick flowers. And most of all he wants to tell him that he feels far from these things; in this moment—as Jopson slowly begins to thrust into him, staring hard into his eyes as he goes—each terror is as surreal and compact as something dreamed. He closed his eyes and rolls into the good, warm darkness their bodies, joined together, make.


End file.
